Did you know that both Sun StorageTek 6140 and 6540 disk arrays, which belong to our Modular Storage Line, are still leading the price/performance rankings in their class? Feel free to verify at StoragePerformance.org. The modular approach and the ability to upgrade from the smallest to the biggest system just by exchanging controllers is very unique and our customers love this investment protection!
All 6000 series arrays are using an ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) to do RAID operations. This results in a very low latency overhead and a guaranteed performance. The publicized cache volume is 100% dedicated to the ASIC and can't be accessed by the management CPU, which for example in case of the 6780 has a separate 2GB RAM. In the complete family, you have upgrade protection.
You can start with a 6140-2 and seamlessly upgrade to a 6780 by just replacing the contollers! No configuration changes or exports are necessary, as the complete RAID configuration is distributed to each single disk in the array. You can also move a complete RAID group to a different array in the family. Certainly you better take care that both are running on the same firmware level. ;-)
The internal flash storage allows longterm power outages without loosing IO that is not yet written on disk. As you can see, each drive chip has access to all disk drives. Everything in the controller and drive enclosure has at least a redundancy factor two. In some cases like the drive chips we have even a higher redundancy factor.
The expansion trays are SBODs (Switched Bunch Of Disks) and therefore limit the impact of a drive failure. Most other vendors still use looped JBODs. In such a case, a loop is vulnerable if a drive fails. In worst case a complete tray could fail just because of a failing drive. Also looped BODs are slower than switched BODs.
Due to the high amount of drive channels, the maximum drive count per dual 4Gb FC loop is 64 (with 448 Drives). With 256 Drives, you will only have 32 drives per dual 4Gb FC loop. Due to this fact, and the dedicated ASICs for RAID calculations, the 6780 array can do up to 175'000 IOPS and 6.4GB/s throughput in disk read operations. This is for sure the top rank in the midrange segment!
*Will be available after initial release.
The Uniqueness of the Sun Storage 6000 Familiy
Today, the 6000 modular storage portfolio looks as follows:- 6140-2 (up to 64 Disk Drives mixed FC and SATA)
- 6140-4 (up to 112 Disk Drivers mixed FC and SATA)
- 6540 (up to 224 Disk Drives mixed FC and SATA)
- 6580 (up to 256 Disk Drives mixed FC and SATA)
- 6780 (up to 256/448* Disk Drives mixed FC and SATA)
All 6000 series arrays are using an ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) to do RAID operations. This results in a very low latency overhead and a guaranteed performance. The publicized cache volume is 100% dedicated to the ASIC and can't be accessed by the management CPU, which for example in case of the 6780 has a separate 2GB RAM. In the complete family, you have upgrade protection.
You can start with a 6140-2 and seamlessly upgrade to a 6780 by just replacing the contollers! No configuration changes or exports are necessary, as the complete RAID configuration is distributed to each single disk in the array. You can also move a complete RAID group to a different array in the family. Certainly you better take care that both are running on the same firmware level. ;-)
Sun StorageTek 6780 Array
As of today, Sun announced its latest and greatest midrange disk array. It is completing the modular line as the high end model of the 6000 series. The connectivity of the Storage Array and its features are very impressive and pretty unique in the midrange segment!- Replaceable Host Inteface Cards (two per Controller)
- Up to 16x 4Gb or 8Gb* FC Host Channels
- Up to 8x 10Gb* Ethernet Host Channels
- 16x 4Gb FC Drive Channels
- Up to 16x/28x* Drive Enclosures
- Up to 32GB* dedicated RAID Cache
- RAID 0,1,3,5,6,10
- Up to 512 Domains = up to 512 servers with dedicated LUN mapping can be attached to the array
- Enterprise Features:
- Snapshot
- Data Copy
- Data Replicaton
The internal flash storage allows longterm power outages without loosing IO that is not yet written on disk. As you can see, each drive chip has access to all disk drives. Everything in the controller and drive enclosure has at least a redundancy factor two. In some cases like the drive chips we have even a higher redundancy factor.
The expansion trays are SBODs (Switched Bunch Of Disks) and therefore limit the impact of a drive failure. Most other vendors still use looped JBODs. In such a case, a loop is vulnerable if a drive fails. In worst case a complete tray could fail just because of a failing drive. Also looped BODs are slower than switched BODs.
Due to the high amount of drive channels, the maximum drive count per dual 4Gb FC loop is 64 (with 448 Drives). With 256 Drives, you will only have 32 drives per dual 4Gb FC loop. Due to this fact, and the dedicated ASICs for RAID calculations, the 6780 array can do up to 175'000 IOPS and 6.4GB/s throughput in disk read operations. This is for sure the top rank in the midrange segment!
Summary
Latest by now, you should know that Sun is NOT a me too manufacturer in the storage business. Our modular storage family uses leading edge technology and delivers investment protection by providing an easy upgrade path the the next higher controller level.*Will be available after initial release.
